I hope they (i.e. VGChartz) get their shit together and start to update the numbers on a regular weekly basis again really soon. Would be fun to follow the fall and Christmas numbers like we used to do...

I agree, but I wouldn't count on it.  This site is no where near being a priority anymore for ioi, and it appears that he's refusing to share how to update the numbers with anyone else.  I dunno what the deal is with him (and I'm well aware from the comments by the other people who work for this site that the issue lies solely with him), but he's neglecting this site and letting it completely fall apart.  Also, given how MS has changed the way they report their numbers to make it pretty much impossible to distinguish XBox sales from Windows sales, I doubt the numbers are going to come any faster than we've been seeing this past year.  At this point, the site may as well be rebranded to not include the numbers anymore, since it's the one feature that isn't being kept up anymore.

This thread brings back so many memories :P. We still weren't aware of how bad the situation was going to get.

ioi doesn't give a damn about VGChartz anymore, but at the same time he doesn't want to let anyone else know how updating the numbers works! Makes perfect fucking sense to me!

Aren't the numbers known for being kinda "made up" though. So even if the sales are there they likely aren't accurate to the real thing at all.

This isn't a credible source for sales figures after all but to give a general idea.

From what we do know of his method of obtaining numbers, he gets information from retailers in order to give a rough idea of what the sales figures are. They weren't that far from the actual # in the grand scheme of things either, on top of that he would retroactively fix the numbers which makes older numbers a bit more reliable than your standard online source. It's not a site for credible numbers at all, but it's one of the better sites for, as you said, giving a general idea

Being a long time reader of this site (since 2007ish) I don't have a problem with the numbers being somewhat off. It is expected that a margin of error exist for a site that tries to gauge what a product sells in a market without having all of the data. However, the fact that number updates are so far behind and sporadic has been very detrimental to this site considering its very purpose is built around those numbers. Without that we have a forum, and while the community isn't terrible, there are better places for news and discussions. Here's hoping something is fixed soon, whether that be removing numbers altogether or catching up because it looks really dire right now.

To be fair, and I'm not defending ioi as I don't agree with this late method of his, we've had much longer delays (I believe the longest was 2 months and a few weeks?). I remember when I found this site in 2011 and was amazed that the numbers were updated so often (usually once a week/every other week)

Most probably the sample sales data collection part of his method is based on his acquaintances, so one of the most time consuming part can't be transfered to others, he could teach the number crunching part to anybody skilled enough, but this person should build quite a big network of sources from scratch, maybe some sources could accept to tell their data to another, surely official sources, when available, would be just fine with anyone managing the site (but official sources alas, are scarce and almost always they release data at most quarterly, but it's very rare, with most we're lucky if they speak once a year, except when launch, BF or Xmas numbers are particularly good), but others could just trust ioi.

The site will continue to generate ad revenue for him regardless of whether he continues to provide content or not. I'm sure he realizes this and doesn't feel pressure to update.